Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 85108 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85108 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
And then the metal door at the back of the milking room banged open and a familiar shape loomed in the doorway.
“What the fuck are you doing?” It was Kier, staring at the two of them as they rutted on the floor in the middle of the milking room. “There’s no time for that! Come on!”
Thrax turned his head to look at the other male. He caught Kier’s pale blue eyes with his own and somehow he found the strength to speak.
“Help…me,” he grated out, his tongue feeling like a piece of lead in his mouth, it was so unwilling to move. “Stop…me!”
Realization flashed in the other warrior’s eyes and he came forward at once. With one swift blow, he punched Thrax right in the jaw.
The blow did two things—first it knocked him away from Andi, who was still huddled on the ground with her head buried in her arms. Second, it somehow broke the hold Mistress Stoneheart had over him.
Suddenly, Thrax was able to move again—as he regained control of his own body, he felt like a puppet whose strings have been cut, granting him freedom at last.
But that freedom wouldn’t last for long if his old Mistress had anything to say about it.
“Stop!” she shouted. Pointing her blaster at Kier, she pulled the trigger.
But she wasn’t a very good shot—the white ray of burning light hissed through the air and only grazed the big warrior’s arm. The slight pain seemed to enrage Kier and suddenly he was growing bigger, his blue eyes turning gold as his features became more bestial.
“You bitch!” he roared, advancing on Mistress Stoneheart who scrambled backwards in fear. She was trying to raise the blaster again and Queen Pantyitch was running for the main door.
Thrax wasn’t about to let them go. He wasn’t going to kill either of them—even if he wanted to. But he was going to make them both pay!
Rushing forward, he slapped the locking button, jamming the door closed so no guards could get in that way. Then he went to the closest captive—a huge Promexian with bulging muscles and a double row of needle-sharp teeth studding his jaws—and began unstrapping him.
“Thank you, Brother,” the Promexian rasped as Thrax let him go free. “Thank you for letting me go—I owe you a debt I can never repay.”
“You owe her a debt too—both of them.” Thrax gestured at the two women who were cowering and clutching each other. Kier had disarmed Mistress Stoneheart by now and she had completely lost her usual calm self-possession. Her violet eyes were rolling wildly and her fashionable up-do had come undone and was hanging in purple wisps around her face.
“No!” she screamed at Kier, even though he hadn’t touched her. “No, you beast! Leave me alone!”
“You know we Kindred cannot kill or hurt a woman,” Thrax said to the Promexian who was still rubbing his thick wrists where the leather bands had cut into his flesh. “But I know your people have no such rules.”
“No, we fucking don’t.” The Promexian grinned, showing double rows of razor sharp teeth which gleamed like polished ivory between his blue lips.
Thrax didn’t have to say anything else. He went around the room, unstrapping the other prisoners. From the corner of his eye, he saw that Kier was doing the same on the other side of the room. As they were freed, the males who had been milked so ruthlessly turned on their captors.
Thrax tried not to watch what happened or hear the piercing shrieks but he couldn’t help thinking that maybe he didn’t deserve not to get his hands dirty. He still had the vivid memory of his own long fingers locked around a female’s throat. The Kindred might have rules against hurting or killing a female but he feared that he had broken those rules—and not just in the distant past.
That thought led his eyes back to Andi. His partner was still huddled on the ground. She was lying on her side now with her knees drawn up to her chin. Her knees and the palms of her hands were bloody from being scraped on the rough metal grating of the floor while he was fucking her. Thrax felt his heart twist at the sight.
She looks like a hurt child—and I’m the one who hurt her!
He wanted to go to her—to gather her into his arms. But he had forfeited that right when he took her so harshly. It didn’t matter to him that he had been under the control of his old Mistress when he did it—he had still hurt the woman he loved and he didn’t deserve to go to her and touch her, not ever again.
He felt the throbbing in his jaw where Kier had punched him and wished it was worse. He longed for even more pain—anything to atone for what he had done to Andi when she was helpless beneath him.